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Week 04, 2000 ,Svenson

Sjon



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Kelshon Saga. The logs. (book37.1 p23)

 

 
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MM-xxiv     Monday

 

2000-01-24

 

 

Haha, minus 7°C. And no wind and no rain. Just nice. Oeps, why is everybody casting dark gaze in my direction. Strange some people seem to prefer wet windy slouchy weather. (au, those stared become black).

The Americans uncovered another problem. We use small server programs that get specific codes from the database. One of the codes is for the number of decimals in currency amounts, another for the language etc. One of these server programs is intended to serve up the country code (3 char) . What it does however is return the language code (2 char). It has been doing this since 1995 (last program change) without any one noticing it. And indeed most countries use the same code (FR for France and French, IT for Italy and Italian, etc.) America does things different (of course) They use USA for country and EN for language. So now I am digging out where that program is used to find out if we can actually correct it without breaking things.

And I learned from Leah Syroid that a bath bomb is not related to a land mine but rather a cross between what we have here as bath salt (fizzles) and batch soap (foams).

I took an other couple of picture with different light settings. While they show a bit brighter on the build in LCD, once transferred I don't see much difference.

Oswal That is Oswal.

Main desk The narrow side desk.

Hmm, not much depth of field. But considdering that I was not using any lightning, only the flash it still looks not too bad. I must reshoot that one in XGA.

 

 

 
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MM-xxv     Tuesday

 

2000-01-25

 

 

Same nice weather.

A meeting with Theo and Wilbert about the timing of the Progress V9 conversion of TeleSales eats the first part of the morning. There is quite some pressure to start as soon as possible, mainly because, after the conversion Ronny must pick up all the required changes for OCS V9. these must be ready by the end of March. This is already an impossible task. The discussion lasted about an hour. The resume : Wilbert, who finally has time to take up the conversion, asks if he can actually start. We say yes.
The rest of the morning (and the better part of the lunch break) gets consumed by another meeting, this time including Peter as well. It is more or less an addendum to the discussion we had last Friday. It is possible to convert an offer into an order once. The same offer can later still be used as a kind of template for other offers. This only goes if you start from a 'new order' and then use the menu and a few dialogs. The Germans want to be able to do that directly, with a double click, from the offers list. They ask something totally different however and that set Ronny and Theo on the wrong foot. They ask to be able to increase the closing date of an already used offer. The result would be pointless. Theo doesn't know anything yet about the order-offer relation so he is clue less. Ronny knows that the request is pointless but he doesn't grasp what the Germans actually want.
Well basically it is Jan who should have known what Germans wanted but he didn't convert the question, he just passed it on without thinking it over.

So what do we have, the whole morning shot by discussions.

A problem from Loek Veldman has kept me busy al afternoon. Well two problem reports actually. One just mentioning that there is a message but not stating if that message is wrong or right or what. After hacking trough the order entry program for I stumble upon coding added by the OLI (logistics) team that prevents the clearing of the warehouse once it has been filled in. That is exactly the reason behind the problem (both problems). Looking up the requirement (from March last year) I notice that the change should apply to only one type of order but it actually applies to all orders. Loek is a functional manager for OLI so I make him aware of the problem, he should first check out the original specs and see why testing then did not turn up the problem.

So what do we have, the whole afternoon shot by a remark from OLI about a problem caused by OLI. I don't work for OLI.

That is about 470 words to say : "My day was eaten by cockroaches."

In between (yes) I followed the discussion about the daynote map view set up laboriously created by Shawn. It is a nice piece of art and scripting. So I shamelessly copied it and hooked it up to my Daynotes-mirror <mg>.
Ok, ok, don't shoot, I'll pay for the copy right.

I retook the side-board picture from yesterday, this time in XGA and highest quality mode. This produces bigger files but I don't see much difference on screen. What difference there is definitively is not worth the extra size. If you want to see for yourself go on but the page will take some time, it totals about 340KB! You've been warned.

Main desk(it opens in another window so you can keep this one running, if you want to pick it up later it is at: www.sjonsvenson.com/img/ sjon/sidebig.html )

 

 

 
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MM-xxvi     Wednesday

 

2000-01-26

 

 

It is still dry and clear but the temperature is rising, -2°C in the morning and above freezing during the day. The sun, while visible, is a bit hazy so tomorrow we will get freezing mist.

One of those day where lots of small tasks get handled and finished. No mayor discussions or problems interrupted my work so I got a lot done but at the end of the day, I cannot really say what I did. It weren't cockroaches because I did real work.

Just before closing down I got an answer from Loek. I asked to clarify the first PRS (nr 13077) because it wasn't clear. His answer isn't clear either, "sometimes I get that message and sometimes I don't". That doesn't help me a bit. Does he want it always, or never, or ... . I will ask him for a direct business rule that I must apply. If he can't answer that he is shooting his own feet. If he doesn't come up wit a rule I make one up myself. In BOFH style.

The skeleton of a PC (Pa) was sitting around here, always in the wrong place. It is just the metalwork and the AT power supply, no front, no mobo, no cards. Now it is not simple to get rid of it because it is a rather heavy (yes, made from real steel) and bulky. The only way to dump it is to take it to a special recycle and waste sorting place, a 'container park'. These parks are only open during office hours and on Saturday but, on Saturday there is always a pile up.
One of the colleagues in Venlo has a friend who is looking for an AT power supply. He knows that I have lots of old computer stuff cluttering my place so he inquires. Yes, I just happen to have this superb, brand new power supply and ... (add more marketing dribble). So I get rid of the whole case, free of charge and I make someone (moderately) happy.

 

 

 
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MM-xxvii     Thursday

 

2000-01-27

 

 

While the temperature doesn't change the weather brightens up again, with sun all day and no clouds.

I returned a question to Loek because his reply from yesterday was not helpful at all. A few hours later I got a new answer and I pinned down the problem. The message that he gets and that he doesn't want occurs (sometimes) in a situation which is impossible with our program. That is smelly and when you can smell the fish it is easy to track it down. Loek is assisting the Norwegians and, after getting a password for their system I find out that they have a local adaptation of that program. Using that I can repeat the problem but when I bypass it and use our own, common program (still available in Norway) I don't get the problem.
The other problem he mentioned is caused by a bad adaptation by the OLI team. After consulting them I solve that to. And I test it and bring Theo up to date.

And I clear some more work so I can pick up the II and DR ownership handling for the V9 release tomorrow.

I am advancing with my story but I am working without a plot which doesn't make it easier. In fact it becomes a bit boring.

 

 

 
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MM-xxviii     Friday

 

2000-01-28

 

 

It still remains cold, well -3°C isn't real cold of course, and dry but clouds are returning.

The II and DR adaptations are finally rolling, it is just a question of keeping up the momentum.

Jan was here to check on the progress we were making. Concerning the contract prolongation I had the feeling that our adaptation worked, well I was damn sure about it, but that the problem was that the final stage did not pick up expired contracts. I was right about this but there is a way to circumvent that by setting a reference date. We tested it (directly on the Norwegian production database ) and it did work. Afterwards Theo composed a mail for Norway to explain how they should do the prolongation. I had to fill in a few technical gap for him but he clearly is picking up on how the whole system works. Explaining things is becoming less of a problem now.

At home Peter came over and we shifted the furniture in the small frontal room. He is removing the old linoleum floor to replace it later with parquet. For once the job is going faster than planned. This room is actually a test, if it turns out as a success we are going to do all the rooms upstairs. What we must do anyway is the landing because the stair to the attic must be fixed there. At the moment is a trapdoor that must be closed each time.

 

 

 
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MM-xxix     Saturday

 

2000-01-29

 

 

During last evening and this night the weather as turned. It's not freezing anymore (+5°C) and it started to rain. Because the wind picked up as well, driving the rain in all directions, it is really miserable weather.

I've gone shopping again. And I return with three new mice (along with instant soup, wine, etc. ). Well I needed one as my main mouse started acting up and cleaning the rollers doesn't help. Now I do have some spare mice gathering dust but it are all serial beasts and I need a PS/2 one. And I will need another one shortly so getting two isn't a waste. The third one is. Only this is a cordless mouse with a tablet and a pen. I will try that out and if it works well I will pass it on to Martine, my brothers partner, who is schooled as an artist.

Last week I had ordered a few cables trough the online shop at Masset. I had commented on the shop site (no dark background which is good, graphics too big which isn't) he presents via an e-mail as well. When I arrived there this morning he checked and had nor received the order. he had received the mail and consequentially changed the graphics. While showing me the new layout he noticed that the order form didn't work. And he immediately knew why he was getting so few orders this last week. Auch.
Turns out he was sending the form to the wrong subnet ( .be in stead of .net). So you could shop around and fill in everything but then you'd get an error. I guess he will be testing his changes somewhat better next time.

On Tuesday I copied The Map to my own Daynotes Com mirror. I posted it but I forgot to post the updated main page so there was no link to it. Yep, it is not only small shopkeepers that make mistakes. I did that now and I removed the mail list as well.

 

 

 
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MM-xxx     Sunday

 

2000-01-30

 

 

The temperature keeps rising, up to 9°C this morning. And the wind keeps whipping up the rain.

At half distance on my running I am already soaking wet. Normally I enjoy running in the rain but not with the winds we have today.

Most of the day is spent on reading. The magazines are spilling over from one stack onto another. In between I finish sorting bank slips and invoices. And, with Peter here, I lend a hand with shifting furniture.

 

 


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Swijsen © 2000

A day you don't learn something new is a wasted day.